JOHN GOMES: STRICT
BUT A DEDICATED HEADMASTER
I HAVE BEEN MEANING TO SHARE THIS NATION MEDIA STORY FOR A WHILE
Retired teacher John Gomes stands by a plaque at a
dormitory at Gaichanjiru High School that is named after him. (Photos Nation
Media)
By Elvis Ondieki
Every head teacher worth his or her salt
ordinarily has a catchy nickname given by students. Retired missionary teacher
John Gomes taught at various schools in central Kenya between 1960 and 1992 and
some of the nicknames he picked along the way are “Hitler”, “Ghost”, “Dad” and
“Mwalimu”.
Being
the disciplinarian he was, many students have deemed the moniker “Hitler”
befitting, as they drew parallels between Mr Gomes and the infamous German
dictator.
He
would stealthily patrol dormitories at night and if he caught someone smoking,
at lunchtime the next day he would take the student to the dining hall, sit
him on a table, light a cigarette, then take the student’s lunch. He would do
the same with supper.
Such treatment, he says, helped stamp out smoking in the schools
he taught.
That, and a notice he placed in every class that read: “A
cigarette is a quantity of tobacco surrounded by white paper, and it has smoke
on one side and an idiot on the other.”
Whenever
a student proved incorrigible, he had a unique way of humbling them – sending
them to dig up an anthill to find the queen.
Those
who know about anthills understand that the queen is the hardest to find. You
have to break your back digging up tough mounds of soil and deal with
ill-tempered soldier ants with their sharp mandibles fervently guarding their
residence. Once done digging, the student was required to present the queen to
Mr Gomes on a plate.
Biology
teacher
“I
loved eating the queen,” Mr Gomes, a biology teacher who definitely missed a
nickname capturing his funny side, tells Lifestyle.
“And
then I was to take them back to teach them biology: This queen is so special
that she lived in a royal chamber in the hill.”
To
the boys in schools surrounding girls’ schools he led, particularly Moi Equator
Girls Secondary in present-day Nyeri County, Mr Gomes was definitely a dictator
of Hitler’s mould. Else, which headteacher takes note of the closing dates of
neighbouring boys’ schools and closes his girls’ school two or more days after
the boys have closed?
The
“Ghost” nickname came out of his uncanny ability to catch students who had
sneaked from school.
But
the most enduring nickname of all was “Dad”. Many understood that his
disciplinarian side was meant to bring the best out of them. Many found him
fatherly in the manner in which he handled girls who became pregnant: He
reserved their space in class on condition that they went home to deliver and
not to abort.
Many
identified with his style of leadership, where he and his wife were literally
on duty from early morning till late at night; the wife going as far as
preparing snacks for students on outings and tasting meals in the kitchen
before students were served. When a student fell ill, their daughter Paloma
says, it was Mr Gomes who was often the ambulance driver and his wife Annie the
nurse as they headed to hospital. This, definitely, was dad.
That
explains why, when Mr Gomes retired as the head of Moi Equator in 1992, the
girls in the school staged a protest.
The
ex-teacher’s eldest child, Desiree Gomes, remembers that day: “Six hundred
girls got up and blocked the road, and they were holding mum and dad so tight
so they wouldn’t leave… They went to the DC’s office demanding that ‘Mwalimu’
and ‘Mama’ had to come back to the school.”
But
their time at the school, which Mr Gomes had headed for 20 years, was up and he
was headed for retirement. And in his retirement, the name “Mwalimu” has taken
prominence.
He
taught some of Kenya’s most prominent people, including Equity Bank founder
Peter Munga at Gaichanjiru High School in Murang’a County; former Cabinet
minister Martha Karua at Kiburia Girls in Kirinyaga County and senior counsel
Waweru Gatonye at St Mary’s Karumandi Secondary School in Kirinyaga County.
We
are having an interview with Mr Gomes, 86, a few weeks after he was given the
Order of the Grand Warrior of Kenya (OGW) award by President Uhuru Kenyatta for
“distinguished and outstanding services rendered to the nation in various capacities
and responsibilities”.
Mr
Gomes was among the 56 Kenyans who received the OGW honours during last month’s
Jamhuri Day. He believes the recognition is among the rewards he was promised
by the former bishop of Nyeri when he asked about getting retirement benefits
for his work.
Retired teacher John Gomes (in pink
tie) with students at Gaichanjiru High School in 2018. In the background is the
dormitory named after him at the school.
Pool
“When (nearing retirement), I went to
the bishop and I said, ‘I am finishing my work. Do I get any benefits for my
work?’ He put his hand around my head and said, ‘My dear son, you’ll get that
reward in heaven,’” recalls Mr Gomes.
“So, these are the rewards I get now
based on that prediction. I am so happy that this happened. I didn’t ask for it
(the OGW award) but I got it because of my hard work,” he adds.
He was born to a family of staunch
Catholics in Goa, the former Portuguese colony in western India, on May 17,
1934. As a young boy in an area that has St Francis Xavier as its patron saint,
it was almost natural for him to take church responsibilities early.
Altar
boy
“Our church is very near to us, and, in
fact I was an altar boy for many years. That’s where I learnt how to drink a
little wine. If the priest left a little wine, that was mine afterwards,” he
jokes.
“So, whenever there was an elderly
priest, we used to enjoy
serving him because he used to put only half the wine in his chalice; so every
time an elderly priest came I was very happy.”
He
got his undergraduate degree at the University of Bombay in India, where he
studied biology.
He
aligned himself with the Consolata order of the Catholic Church and became a
lay Consolata missionary teacher after university. His missionary work saw him
go to Aden in Yemen in 1956.
“I
went to teach in a Catholic school in Aden. There, I met a Consolata father who
was coming from Italy to Kenya. He said, ‘Mr Gomes, please come to Kenya to
teach over there as a missionary.’ So, he sent me the work permit and I came to
Kenya in December 1959,” recalls Mr Gomes.
From
then to date, he has been in Kenya. Unlike priests, lay missionaries are
allowed to marry.
“But
one wife,” he is quick to note.
“And
then you carry on your work as a lay missionary, teaching anywhere. But then
you know the salaries are not that excellent. That is the sacrifice you make,”
he adds.
Mr
Gomes’s first teacher posting in Kenya was at Mugoiri Girls in Murang’a County.
That was in 1960 when roads were so poor that it was not uncommon for drivers
to sleep in their stalled cars. This was also at the height of the State of
Emergency, a period when the colonial government was out to crush armed
rebellion to its rule.
“I
had to learn a little bit of Kikuyu because that was Mau Mau time. So, I had to
tell them in Kikuyu that I was going to a particular school, and they would
push me right up to the school,” recalls Mr Gomes. “The roads were so bad that
sometimes we used to sleep in the car at night. I used to keep a packet of milk
all the time.”
He
spent two years at Mugoiri and was then transferred to Karima Boys, where he
spent a year, before being moved to Gaichanjiru Secondary, where he taught Mr
Munga biology.
“He
was a very intelligent person,” Mr Gomes says of Mr Munga.
From
there, he was posted to Nyeri High School.
“Nyeri
High was one of the top three schools at that time. And it was run by the
American brothers. To teach in Nyeri High, you really had to be a good teacher
because all the boys were above average. So, if you did well at the school, you
were always likely to be promoted as a headmaster anywhere,” he says.
Disciplined lady
And
true to that pattern, after Nyeri High his next posting was St Mary’s Karumandi
as a headteacher. His next stop was to head Kiburia Girls, where Ms Karua was a
Form Three student.
“She
was a very disciplined lady. We made her prefect in Form Three,” he says of Ms
Karua. “She is one of those who advised me to get a music set so that the girls
could be kept busy (during weekends).”
In
those days, he says, strikes were rampant and he had found being idle on
weekends was one of the causes. Having dances in school was his way of keeping
schoolgirls entertained on weekends to sap any negative energies.
From
Kiburia, he was posted to Moi Equator in 1972, and that is where he would stay
until his retirement. When he took over the school, he says, it had only two
classrooms with 43 girls: 23 in Form One and 20 in Form Two.
It
was not even known as Moi Equator; it was just Equator Girls. It was not until
Mr Gomes and the school leadership invited the then Vice President Daniel arap
Moi for a fundraiser that the “Moi” name came in.
Moi
was pleasantly surprised when, as he went to open the administration block
whose construction he had contributed towards, he found that the institution
had been named “Moi Equator”.
“He
was grateful that we had named it ‘Moi Equator’ when he was the vice-president.
That was the first school named after him,” says Mr Gomes.
Starting
out with just two buildings, Mr Gomes left Moi Equator when it had around 600
students, 12 classrooms, five laboratories, three dormitories, seven staff
houses, a library, an administration block and a dining hall. He says Moi
contributed to this growth through fundraisers.
“Plus,
I started a farm with 1,000 chickens, 27 cattle, 80 pigs, 70 goats, 60 sheep,”
he says. The farm, however, did not last long after he left the institution.
At
Moi Equator, his family was part of the school. His wife, a professional
stenographer, often helped in a number of roles and sometimes chipped in at-home science classes.
Their
daughters say they were raised as part of the school family. Mother, father and
children attended school dances with the girls. They also helped on the school
farm with other students.
“My
wife was their caterer, caretaker, mentor and nurse. She was a part of
everything. So, it was a family affair that made the students feel that the
school was part of their family. And that is why, even after 50 years, we still
meet every year and cut a cake to celebrate,” says Mr Gomes.
Last born daughter
Besides
the celebrations, the old girls of Moi Equator have been funding the John Gomes
Foundation, which offers scholarships to bright but needy students.
“We
can take two to three students at least every year,” says Desiree.
The
foundation takes most of Mr Gomes’s time, besides the activities of the Earth
Angels Welfare (Kenya) which is mostly run by his lastborn daughter, Paloma.
The team works with Mother Teresa homes in Kenya as well as 15 homes and
schools for orphaned, underprivileged, physically and mentally challenged,
abandoned, HIV-positive and those living with albinoism.
“In
retirement, I am spending all my time helping the less fortunate; sometimes
joining my daughters in their work with Mother Teresa Earth Angels,” Mr Gomes
says.
In
recognition of his work, the dining hall at Moi Equator is named after Mr
Gomes. There is also a dormitory at Gaichanjiru Boys built by Mr Munga that is
named after him.
“I
was shocked and surprised that that dormitory was named after me,” Mr Gomes
says.
Mr
Gomes has some interesting philosophies from his days as a teacher, key among
them that a school head should always be in school during weekends.
“The
most important thing for any studies to be done is discipline. Discipline is
missing in the schools. Today, there is no discipline at all,” he says. “And if
you want discipline, the head of the institution must be in the school compound
during the weekend. It doesn’t happen.”
He
also notes that school heads should cut middlemen in school procurement to
avoid paying too much for goods they could have obtained by themselves.
“I
saved money because I did (most projects) myself: Supervising, building. Now we
have contractors, we have suppliers, we have so many people who collect so much
cash and the schools cannot build anything at all. If a school has to improve,
discipline comes from the top,” he says.
Mr
Gomes also believes that food eaten by students needs to be properly checked by
a person no less than the school head.
eondieki@ke.nationmedia.com
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